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Praca oryginalna Original paper
Economic pressure, such as periodically lower pro-fitability of pork production, is a major reason leading farmers to be interested in home-grown feedstuffs, among others likewise various kind of silages. On the other hand, one of the necessities of organic and exten-sive feeding is supplying pigs with roughage feeds. For animals housed outdoors in paddocks with grass cover, grass may constitute the roughage component. However, pigs reared indoors with no possibility to graze, need to be provided with, for instance, some kind of silage. Several investigations have been focu-sed on the use of different roughage materials for fat-teners. The overall idea was to explore what benefi-cial effect could be obtained in relation to the standard feeding. Feeding pigs with a diet containing fibrous feeds influences not only body weight gains but also carcass traits and meat quality. The carcasses from extensively fattened pigs is characterized by increased lean yield and heavier loins and hams in comparison to conventionally fed pigs (18). Similar results were found by Danielsen et al. (5) who investigated the effect of restricted amounts of feed mixture with ad libitum intake of clover grass or clover grass silage on production results and sensory meat quality.
Restric-ting concentrate and ad libitum roughage intake resul-ted in a lower daily gains, but increased lean content, and reduced tenderness of meat. Hansen et al. (10) investigated a range of aspects of meat quality and its sensory traits. In three treatments, organic concentra-tes were given without access to roughage or with ac-cess to two different types of roughage and, at the same time, a reduced level of concentrates. This resulted in a slightly lower daily gain, whereas no differences were observed in lean content and tenderness. Jensen and Andersen (11) compared roughage given separately from the concentrate and as a mixed diet in different proportions through the growing period. The overall results from this experiment indicate that the mixed diet resulted in a significantly lower daily gain, but roughage intake at an amount of 5-10% of the total energy could be obtained without compromising daily gain. It is clear that a fiber-rich diet will have only a limited role in pig fattening, mostly in order to pro-duce a special quality meat and its products that meet the consumer requirements.
There is a possibility of affecting the animals orga-nisms by selected herbs or herbs mixtures. The pro-perty of single herbs enable the stimulation of a
cho-Effect of herbs mixture and enzymes
supplementation of a grass silage diet for pigs
on performance and meat quality
MA£GORZATA WI¥TKIEWICZ, EWA HANCZAKOWSKA
Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, National Research Institute of Animal Production, ul. Krakowska 1, 32-083 Balice, Poland
wi¹tkiewicz M., Hanczakowska E.
Effect of herbs mixture and enzymes supplementation of a grass silage diet for pigs on performance and meat quality
Summary
The effect of supplementing a pig diet containing grass silage with herbs mixture and enzymes on body weight gains and quality of carcass and meat was investigated on 64 fatteners originating from sows (PL × LWP) mated with a boar (Duroc × Pietrain). Group I received restricted amounts of feed mixture and ad libitum grass silage. Experimental groups received the same diet with various additives: group II herbs mixture 5.0 kg/t of feed mixture; group III enzymes (beta-glucanase 325 BGU/g 200 g/t, xylanase 210 U/g 200 g/t of feed mixture); group IV herbs mixture together with enzymes.
The obtained results indicated that supplementing pigs diet containing grass silage with fodder enzymes, especially enzymes combined with herbs, increased body weight gains of young pigs, during the first fattening period. The addition of herbs mixture to grass silage diet improved meat sensory traits and its water holding capacity index and reduced meat yellowness.
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sen direction of animal production. Increasing the pro-tein anabolism, weight gains, immunity and lowering the harmfulness of an anti-nutritive fodders compo-nents is possible through onion, garlic, lemon balm and thyme supplementation. Pepper mint and corian-der positively influence the digestive processes, while nettle, pepper mint, couch-grass and garlic increase the feed intake. The anti-oxidative properties of phenols included in various herbs can be used for improving meat shelf stability (9, 15).
The constituents of plant cell walls present in most feeds of plant origin are the non-starch polysacchari-des (NSP). They are not digested in the alimentary tract of monogastric animals and they have anti-nutritive properties. NSP increase viscosity of the digesta and lower availability of nutrients (13). This anti-nutritive effect can be limited by degrading them with suitable exogenous enzymes (4, 16). Such enzymes, usually of microbial origin, are at present commercially pro-duced and due to their decreasing prices they can be effectively used in feeding farm animals: poultry (12, 14) and pigs (2, 17). The main components of such preparations are usually glucanases and xylanases and their effectiveness depends on feed composition (espe-cially its NSP content) and type of enzyme activity (6, 19).
The aim of the experiment was to determine the effect of feeding pigs with grass silage supplemented with herb mixtures and/or enzymes on fattening results and carcass and meat quality.
Material and methods
The experiment was carried out on 64 fattening pigs ori-ginated from sows (Polish Large White × Polish Landrace) mated with a Duroc × Pietrain boar. Half of the fatteners were gilts and half were barrows. All animals were kept and fed individually with the same mixture (12.9 MJ ME, 163 g of crude protein) composed of barley, wheat, triti-cale, legume seeds, rapeseed cake and vitamin-mineral supplementation. The feed mixture was fed twice daily in standard restricted amounts, according to the body weight of the pigs. In addition for all fatteners the grass silage was supplied ad libitum. Each group received the same diet (feed mixture + grass silage) but with different additives:
group I (control) feed mixture and grass silage with-out any supplements;
group II feed mixture and grass silage and herbs mixture 5.0 kg/t of feed mixture;
group III feed mixture and grass silage and enzymes (beta-glucanase 325 BGU/g 200 g/t, xylanase 210 U/g 200 g/t of feed mixture);
group IV feed mixture and grass silage and herbs mixture together with enzymes.
The herbs mixture used in the present experiment contained: lemon balm, pepper-mint, nettle, thyme, couch-grass, garlic, milk--thistle, etc. Animals were used in the experi-ment from about 30 to 114 kg of body weight.
All pigs were weighed individually every two weeks. At the end of the experiment all pigs were slaughtered. After 24-hours cooling at a temperature of +4°C the right sides of the carcasses were examined. Samples of longissimus muscle, obtained from the area of the last thoracic and first lumbar vertebra, were removed for analysis. The proxima-te analysis was conducproxima-ted according to AOAC (1) stan-dard methods. In slices of fresh meat, the meat color (light-ness, saturation in red, saturation in yellow) was measured with the Minolta CR-310 colorimeter. The water holding capacity index was estimated in fresh minced meat accor-ding to Grau and Hamm (7) methods. Sensory traits of meat were examined using Bary³ko-Pikielna (3) methods. The longissimus m. slices of similar size and weight, obtained from the area mentioned above, were boiled in 0.6% NaCl water solution. The aroma, taste, tenderness and juiciness were scored using a 1 (the worst) to 5 (the best) point scale. All data were subjected to analysis of variance and the differences between mean values were estimated using the Duncan test (Statistica 5.1).
Results and discussion
Using grass silage in pig diet is part of an extensive fattening system characterized by the lower weight gains but better indices of carcass and meat quality. Similar results were found by Danielsen et al. (5), Hansen et al. (10) and Jensen and Andersen (11), and also in the present study.
In this experiment, besides a fiber rich diet, supple-mentation with herbs mixture and enzymes was used. During the first fattening period, the addition of herbs mixture or enzymes to a pig diet containing grass silage increased weight gains by 4 and 5.7% respectively, but the significant differences (by 11.5%) appeared only when both supplements were combined (tab. 1). A lit-tle improvement (up to 2.0%) in body weight gains was also noticed during the second fattening period. For the whole fattening (30-114 kg BW), herbs mix-ture and enzymes used separately increased weight gains by 1.2-1.7% while both additives used together by about 6% (p £ 0.05). These results clearly sug-gest the necessity of using both supplements for pigs obtaining the roughage diet, especially in feeding young animals. Feeding pigs with these additives enabled the reduction of the whole fattening period by about 7 days which is an obvious economically beneficial result. According to van der Meulen et al. (22), addition of
t h g i e w y d o B Grasssliage Gr+ashsesrbliasge G+raesnszysmliaegse Gra+shsesrbliasge s e m y z n e + SEM g k 0 6 -0 3 530A 553AB 560AB 591B 7.500 g k 4 1 1 -0 6 767a 751ab 755ab 782b 9.004 g k 4 1 1 -0 3 659a 667ab 670ab 698b 6.586
Tab. 1. Average daily weight gains in fattening periods (g/d)
Explanations: a, b mean values in the same row with different letters differ significantly at p £ 0.05; A, B mean values in the same row with different letters differ significantly at p £ 0.01
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xylanase raised the amount of soluble polysaccharides and vo-latile fatty acids in the stomach and ileum of the pigs. Since short chain fatty acids can be partly absorbed from this part of the alimentary tract they can contribute to the energy supply of pigs. This could also be one of the reasons for the better pig performance registered in this experiment.
There was no significant effect of the supplementation the silage diet with herbs mixture or enzy-mes on carcass quality characte-ristics noticed in the present experiment (fig. 1). Most of the presented indices were similar, except the meat of the ham and loin eye area, which were slight-ly better in all supplemented groups. Urbañczyk et al. (21) observed an increase in the loin eye area by 15% (p £ 0.05) and carcass meatiness by 3.6 percent points while backfat thickness was reduced by 8.4%, when herbs mixture was used. The tendency towards slightly higher meat content in carcass and sig-nificantly greater loin area by 7-11%, depending on the amount of nettle supplementation, were noticed by Szewczyk et al. (20). The improvement in meat technological value, because of its lower water holding capacity index, as well as in consumers value (more desirable color and higher sensory traits) was ob-served in the present experiment (tab. 2). Neither herbs mixture nor enzyme supplementation in-fluenced the proximate analysis of longissimus m. There was a tendency towards a higher crude protein content in meat and lower fat content observed in all groups receiving supplements; however, the differences between
mean values were not significant. Meat from groups receiving herbs or enzymes was characterized by a lower water holding capacity index by 2.4, 2.03 and 3.09 percent points, respectively, and in case of using both additives together the difference was statistically sig-nificant in comparison to the control group (p £ 0.01). Meat from the experimental groups was more red (by 1.4-1.8%) and less yellow (by 8.7-17.4%). Boiled meat
from pigs receiving herbs mixture, alone or together with enzymes, was characterized by a significantly better aroma and taste, as well as improved tender-ness, when compared with groups receiving feed mix-ture and grass silage without herbs supplementation. The tendency towards the improvement of aroma, taste, tenderness and juiciness was noticed by Grela (8) when pigs were fed with a mixture containing dried s r e t e m a r a P Grasssliage Gr+ashsesrbliasge G+raesnszysmliaegse Gra+shsesrbliasge s e m y z n e + SEM : % , s i s y l a n a e t a m i x o r P r e tt a m y r d 24.45 24.17 24.47 24.43 0.097 n i e t o r p 22.41 22.62 22.78 22.60 0.118 t a f 21.45 21.24 21.30 21.34 0.067 % , y ti c a p a c g n i d l o h r e t a W 23.30B 20.88AB 21.27AB 20.21A 0.359 n i m 5 4 H p 6.29 6.28 6.26 6.31 0.038 h 4 2 H p 5.68 5.66 5.62 5.63 0.029 : e l a c s s 'r e t n u H ,t a e m h s e rf f o r u o l o C s s e n t h g il 44.59 44.29 44.46 44.15 0.317 d e r n i n o it a r u t a s 12.24 12.41 12.46 12.45 0.099 w o ll e y n i n o it a r u t a s 12.53 12.09 12.31 12.23 0.082 : s t n i o p ,t a e m d e li o b f o n o it a u l a v e y r o s n e S a m o r a 4.6a 4.8b 4.6a 4.8b 0.028 e t s a t 4.5a 4.6b 4.5a 4.6b 0.033 s s e n r e d n e t 4.3a 4.4b 4.3a 4.4a 0.034 s s e n i c i u j 4.3a 4.4b 4.3a 4.3a 0.035
Tab. 2. Meat quality traits
Explanations: as in tab. 1.
Fig. 1. Carcass quality estimation
2,09 27,47 57,65 77,06 61,89 2,05 27,1 58,91 77,81 61,82 2,26 27,16 58,16 77,73 60,36 2,22 27,23 58,52 77,88 60,64 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Backfat thickness, cm Meat of primal cuts, kg Loin eye area, cm2
Meat content in ham, % Meat content in carcass, %
Grass silage + herbs + enzymes Grass silage + enzymes Grass silage + herbs Grass silage
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nettle plant, juniper fruits and roots of couch-grass. The beneficial effect of adding the herbs mixture to pigs diet was also noticed by Urbañczyk et al. (21). In their experiment meat obtained from pigs fed with herbs additive was characterized by a 1.3% lower sa-turation in yellow color, lower water holding capacity and significantly higher juiciness and tenderness (by about 6%). Similarly Hanczakowska (9) found a sig-nificant beneficial influence of sage, lemon balm or coneflower extract on meat color and water holding capacity when added to feed mixture for pigs.
Conclusions
Results of the present experiment indicate that sup-plementing pigs diet containing grass silage with herbs mixture or fodder enzymes and especially enzymes combined with herbs, improved body weight gains during the first fattening period.
The addition of herbs mixture to grass silage diet developed meat sensory traits, water holding capacity index and reduced yellowness in pig meat.
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